Beasts of No Nation

Idris Elba.  You are one sick fuck.

For all you lazy ass movie lovers, you have no excuse.  This movie was released day in date with the theatrical release (only grossed about 90K in a one week limited run since all the big corporate theater overlords like Regal refused to show it…snobby bastards).  It’s been on Netflix since right after TIFF, in the fall, and the omission of Idris Elba in the acting category is obviously cuz #oscarssowhite.

The little boy Abraham Attah in his breakout role is also commendable, and believable.  It took me a while to watch this movie, you gotta be in the right FIGHT-THE-SYSTEM-FUCK-THE-SYSTEM-FUCK-WAR-LET-ME-FEEL-TERRIBLE-FOR-ALL-THE-SHITTY-THINGS-HAPPENING-IN-THE-WORLD-ESP-FUCKING-CHILD-SOLDIERS mood, which can sometimes be hard to get into.  To prepare, I suggest watching a shit ton of Fox News and then afterwards unwinding by going to a Krav Maga session and writing to your local senator or writing a blog, whatever makes you feel like you are making a difference in the world.….$10 (but you’re so fortunate, it’s free on netflix!)

If you heart Beasts of No Nation…

Recommendations from …:
Blood Diamond
Kony 2012
Kite Runner

 

 

J.J. Abrams’s Super 8

There is not much to deter audiences from watching Super 8 this summer. There is friendship, suspense, young love, even a black doctor to dispel rumors floating that Super 8 was maintaining an exclusively white cast. The only hitch for moviegoers is they will almost certainly be subjected to the Larry Crowne preview. Larry Crowne or How I Learned to Stop Loving Julia Roberts and Start Calling Tom Hanks a Hasbeen. The trailer for LC is the cinematic equivalent of Magic Johnson getting AIDS – basically the most shameful and degrading method of signaling an end to a bright career. The LC trailer is literally the worse thing I’ve ever seen and I once saw a police officer rub a retarded child in honey and ants. I once saw Cameron Diaz rape a homeless Chinese man. And even then I chuckled.

As stated, it is unlikely Super 8 will face much opposition on its way to becoming the American summer blockbuster of 2011. Green Lantern (or as I like to call it – Retarded Avatar) will certainly muster no objections. Neither will the likes of Thor, Pirates, Transformers, Twilight or any other in the parade of unwarranted and predictable summer features. Why do children and teenagers become dramatically more mentally handicapped over summer vacation? Is it the mind-numbing heat? The lack of schooling? The repetition of a customer service job? The enforcement of high-cost, low-quality cinematic franchises upon younger audiences? Drug dealers?

Whatever it may be – movie studios aren’t helping matters during the summer. There is a marked drought of meaningful flicks over the period of late-May until September. Which is why Super 8 comes as a remarkable surprise – a giant among dwarf babies. Part monster movie. Part government conspiracy. And most importantly about how friendships between children can be the most fiercely loyal and remarkable. Pretty much the best child-actor performances I’ve seen since Stand By Me (excluding Tree of Life which exists on another plain of film-making). And the most inventive and efficient storytelling this summer . . . $10

If you heart Super 8:

Recommendations by Quispy
Bong Joon-ho’s The Host
Stand By Me
Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Rabbit Hole

One of the best films of 2010.

I left the theaters with damp sleeves, wet cheeks, and heavy boots.  The subject-matter in Rabbit Hole is about the loss of a child – a sure-win for a tear-jerker.  But the performance of Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as Becca and Howie Corbett moves past the shock of loss.  Without melodrama, Rabbit Hole peers into the daily lives of this couple in months after the tragedy.  Becca and Howie are both trying to learn how to relate with the world again.  Becca is the main focus of the story, the one constantly on the brink of losing it.  Every moment with Becca is on-edge, because no one knows what moment or look, will cause her mental breakdown.  Rabbit Hole is not overwhelmed with grief, it allows some room for humor and maybe even something to look forward to.

Kidman’s performance has been recognized and approved, but it is no better than Eckhart, Dianne Wiest (as Becca’s mother), or Miles Teller (as the boy responsible for the accident).  I suppose as the biggest name, Kidman got the nominations, but each one of these actors delivered an impressive display of talent.  As an adaptation of  David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the dialogue is sharp and potent.  Wiest and Teller should have been formally recognized for their incredible performances  … $10

Recommendations from The Mug:

Birth
21 Grams
Little Children

Black Swan

Take it from a girl who’s gone through the shit storm of the ballet world – this movie is amaaaazingly accurate! Not that it had much competition. The only other two ballet movies people know are pretty retarded. The Red Shoes is so old its biggest selling point was the movie had technicolor. I mean, it’s right there in the freakin title. The storyline didn’t exactly stand the test of time: the ginger has to choose between her love for a man and her love for dancing. When, tell me, when has that ever been an actual choice in the history of the universe? Before I moved to New York to start auditioning, I took the $35 left in my boyfriend’s wallet and the keys to his truck. Easiest decision of my life. The only other ballet movie people know is that Neve Campbell one directed by Robert Altman, The Company. I know you didn’t watch it, so I won’t pretend I did either. What is Neve Campbell doing today? Scream 4? — And that Altman guy? Deader than the nerve endings of my big toes.

Black Swan is about a super princessy ballet dancer played by Natalie Portman who has been waiting since way before her first period to get the lead role in Swan Lake. She’s got the swan embroidered throw pillows on her baby pink sheets to prove it. You’d think this is exactly the kind of girl I would hate, but the movie uses Portman to show exactly how much ballerinas give up to be great artists. Portman still lives with her family, doesn’t go out unless to find inspiration for her dancing, and never ever eats cake. Those are pretty good rules to live by if you need to save your pennies in this economy. Me? I’m living with eleven other ballerinas in a loft full of bunk beds and every day I pick up a clump of hair in the drain that you would swear came out of a dying cat. Granted, Natalie Portman isn’t a real dancer so behind all that MTV editing the technique is just so-so, but the girl did “train” ten months to get her rib cage to pop out like that. All those shots of her hovering over a toilet must have been real easy to get. Aspiring dancers looking to fit into a smaller leotard should really pay attention; its all about frequency, girls.

The real conflict of the movie comes when Portman realizes that in order to play the Swan Queen she has to become a bitch. Otherwise, the other women in the movie – rival Mila Kunis, overbearing mom Barbara Hershey – are gonna seriously out-bitch her. Unfortunately the only person around to support Portman’s realization is her director played by Vincent Cassel. This is Cassel resurrected from La Haine, except instead of waving a gun around, this time Cassel is intimidating exclusively with his dick. To complete her transformation into bitchdom on stage, Portman needs to both want dick and fear it. The movie is no slouch about reminding you what is important. If Portman’s crotch or boobs aren’t in the shot, you can bet a big spandex bulge will be. There is just so much dick wagging in this movie, they finally had to include a hot lesbian sex scene in there just to balance it all out. That was cool with me. Everyone goes through a phase, yeah? Point is, Portman overcomes both dick and boobs and becomes the best she can be!!!

I really hope that this movie inspires a lot of little girls out there that ballet is a really really cool thing to dedicate your life to. The younger generation needs to understand that obsession is the only way to get anywhere ultimately. You can ignore a lot of the ending of the movie when things go wrong for the poor girl. Like all good ballet, if you take away all the clothes, make-up, pain, trauma, and metaphor, it’s just about girls having a good time, all the time. See ya at auditions, ladies! — $10

xoxo — tiaragirl1991

In Bruges

is my kind movie, which is to say it might not be everyone’s kind of movie (“if you grew up on a farm and you were fucking retarded”). The film makes no apologies for celebrating a blunt, uncouth, un-PC humor. And it doesn’t have to, since art of the highest caliber usually gets away revealing flashes of bigotry.

And did I mention the film’s almost fetishistic attraction to violence, sex and drugs? I know, it’s totally awesome.

I don’t want to leave you with the impression In Bruges is simply an amalgamation of cheap tricks and spectacles however. For cheap (of mind) spectacles watch a Michael Bay or Brett Ratner movie. The film’s writer, Martin McDonagh carefully crafted the morality tale portion of his film to pay comedic and philosophical dividends. Thinly veiled as a hit man, “get the fuck outta Dodge” movie, the characters scamper through a maze of Belgian landscape, ominous fog, ambient piano, pushy tourists, power-tripping merchants, and terrible luck (like, Shakespearean-level-coincidental-shitty-ass luck).

It crossed my mind that In Bruges is also a movie about tourism, though half our pleasure derives from one of our tour guides perpetually insulting the cultural hot spots (and any hankering to visit them). For him, the most exciting big of Bruges is a film set where they’re “filming midgets.” In Bruges is self-deprecating about its genius to the core. Its one meta-moment (the movie’s movie within the movie) stars the most disgruntled, insensitive, midgeted character of them all. The midgeted character is also a midget. Literally. Literally like really, really short. I know, he’s totally awesome.

I feel I’d not be doing my job if I didn’t mention the insanely-good cast attached to In Bruges. But I’m sure IMDB has a page and a trailer to help you with that . . . $10

I wanted all of my recommendations to be movies with at least one midget (does Danny DeVito count as a midget?).

If you heart In Bruges:

Recommendations from DJ Cheata
Death at a Funeral
Bad Santa
Death to Smoochy

And though it’s not a movie . . . It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (TV Series)

Special

Michael Rapaport is on-point as Les, a naive and tragic hero as an ex-meter maid.  Special successfully executes the difficult task of packing many genres into one movie.  Special is suspenseful, darkly humorous, and dramatic all at the same time.  There are many moments to laugh out-loud, and then step into a scene that makes your heart drops to your heels.   Much of the dark humor relies on the bizarre delusions of Les who appears to be in the throes of a severe manic episode.  However, the delight in watching, as the story unravels, comes from the well-crafted story that makes you wonder: maybe he does have super powers? Well-selected cast and fitting score.  This is a sadly under-appreciated movie that definitely deserves a viewing . . . $10

If you heart Special:

Recommendations from Yolkie:
Science of Sleep
The Wrestler
Stranger Than Fiction

Recommendations from Sneak da Keek:
American Splendor
Me and You and Everyone We Know
A Scanner Darkly

Trailer: Special